


AU

by VentoSereno



Series: Vignettes [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2020-05-18 08:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19331161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VentoSereno/pseuds/VentoSereno
Summary: Beyond.





	1. During - Remus POV

Smoke rises around him, the Hogwarts grounds unrecognisable. He stuns two death eaters duelling a Ravenclaw sixth year as he runs past. She barely has time to acknowledge the gesture as she is pulled into another fight.

Remus only narrowly avoids a killing curse himself as he ducks to avoid a flying bit of masonry casually tossed away by a giant. He is trying to lead an organised retreat but can’t stop himself getting involved. Not when it’s a handful of professionals and mostly students he is commanding – he has a duty to protect them. 

They have to fall back. It’s painfully obvious to all that they are overwhelmed, outnumbered, outplayed. He must make them fall back.

The Ravenclaw has disappeared in the smoke and the chaos of the battle. He conjures up an image of Teddy in his bath and throws a patronus at a flock of dementors coming towards them. His patronus has never been so bright.

The flare of it lights up the bloodless face of Antonin Dolohov standing right in front of him, his eyes curiously blank. As if the screams of dying adults and children were nothing to him. 

Remus curses himself and his own dulled senses. He’s sure no-one could’ve sneaked up on him like this last year. He’s too slow.

He immediately throws a killing curse which Dolohov deflects casually, lazily, as if Remus had simply blown bubbles at him. He approaches. 

“Dog.”

“That was Sirius. I’m the wolf." Remus throws a freezing jinx at his legs. Dolohov stumbles momentarily but responds with a sectumsempera that threatens to decapitate him.

They are circling each other now. Remus is wondering whether he can get away with pulling down the statue behind Dolohov on top of him, but the next moment the statue has exploded and they both have to duck to avoid the shards.

In the confusion Remus aims another killing curse at Antonin’s head but misses. He almost stumbles and has to fight to regain his footing.

“I don’t know who is more desperate to see you dead. The Dark Lord, Bellatrix, or that disgusting werewolf you’re such good friends with.”

Doholov aims a cruciatus curse at Remus who moves aside just in time. He responds in kind but Antonin throws up a shield so that Remus has to duck to avoid his own curse.

“I can already imagine the glories the Dark Lord will shower upon me when I bring him your body.”

They are duelling in earnest now. Curses fly everywhere, he can’t stop moving. If he stops he will die. He knows he must kill or be killed, but somewhere in the recess of his mind he is aware that if his curses miss they often find another, unintended mark. He sees bodies of students littered everywhere.

Doholov has no such qualms. As they slow, still circling each other, both panting and waiting for an opening, another Death Eater spots them and runs over. Remus throws up a shield before readying himself for the onslaught but Doholov causally flicks his wand the Death Eater crumples. Dead.

“I’m not sharing this with anyone. I don’t suppose your wife is here?”

Doholov’s bizarre behaviour throws Remus. He doesn’t avoid his next cruciatus and finds himself on the ground, face full of dirt, pain filling every inch of his brain until it is all he can see, feel, taste. 

Dolohov moves into view. He seems very far away. 

“I’ll kill you first. Then I’ll get the rest of your family.”

Another cruciatus hits Remus and the wall that keeps his human mind and the wolf apart wobbles, then crumbles. Suddenly, the wolf floods his mind. He’s back in the Shrieking Shack, on countless cold cellar floors, mid-transformation. The metallic smell of blood fills his mouth and nostrils and the wolf is angry. It will not stand for this. The wolf does not like his pack being threatened. 

His wand is in his hand and he growls something unintelligible and he doesn’t know how, but the next moment Doholov is on the ground, convulsing, as his life blood pours out of his neck. His throat has been ripped open, a red flower where the collar of his robe used to be. In moments he is still.

For a moment, all Remus can do is lie there, trying to catch his breath. Relieved and yet disgusted with himself. The next moment, Neville is pulling him up by his robes. “Get up! We’ve got to head back!”

They are running now, throwing curses behind them blindly. Remus sees that almost everyone has retreated now. Death Eaters loom behind them, throwing casual curses at their retreating backs, not trying very hard to kill them. Before he has the chance to think why this is, he kills a werewolf he recognises from Greyback’s camp, and pulls up the bleeding student he was going to feast on. 

They are weighed down now, as he and Neville share the weight of the unconscious teenager between them. But the doors are close. As they approach the castle more of their side are there, fighting back, taking a last stand. He runs past Kingsley who is duelling three death eaters at once. 

They’re going to make it. It’s not far. They will make it inside and regroup. All is not lost. Where is Harry? He will find Harry and help him. 

Then he is down on the ground and the world has gone dark.


	2. During - Tonks POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Tonks, she's caught in the typical trap of the working mother. Feeling guilty for being at home with her baby and not helping out at work, then feeling guilty when she's at work and not with her baby. Smash the patriarchy, Tonks!

_I shouldn’t have come, I shouldn’t have come._

Dread beats through her, simultaneously making her want to hang back and forcing her feet to keep moving. Tonks presses through a throng of fleeing students, making it to the head of the stairs and down into the main hall. The air is alive with the crackle of spells being cast, thrown off, cast again. Masonry crumbles, dust and splinters rise from cracked panels, tapestries are flung onto the ground. 

There is such confusion she can’t follow the main thread of the battle. But her side seem hopelessly overwhelmed. Her heart ups its frenzied hammering.

She needs to find Remus. Find him, keep him safe, fight by his side. Then she will go back, they must go back, to their tiny Teddy, whom she thrust into her mother’s arms without a word of explanation. She hadn’t even said goodbye.

No need. She is going to be back so soon, Teddy won’t even know she’s been gone.

Tonks casts about in the Great Hall for a while, until she’s sure Remus isn’t there. Her heart sinks. He must be outside. Just like him, to be in the most dangerous place possible. _Even though he’d promised her._ She stuns a death eater who’s about to attack a Ravenclaw from behind, then kills another who’s about to curse her. Tonks beats her way back to the main hall, against the flow of students who are trying to get to the relative safety of the Great Hall.

She takes out one, two, three thugs – hanging them upside down by their ankles for all to see. It gives her a wild, savage satisfaction. However, once she reaches the doors, she has to concede that their side is in full retreat. Kingsley is mustering and shielding the rear, trying to ensure as many people as possible make it back inside. She cannot see Remus – in the dark of the night the battle is even more impossible to follow. 

Tonks starts to head towards Kingsley, to help shepherds the children in, when she finally catches sight of Remus. He’s running, covered in blood, but he is mercifully alive. And coming towards her. 

Tonks is opening her mouth to call out to him when it happens, as if in slow motion. The jet of light aimed at his back, the sudden shock blooming on his face. The sudden slackness of his jaw, the emptiness in his eyes. He never even saw her. He collapses mere feet away from where she is standing. Neville is screaming something, his voice lost in the chaos. Her own mouth gapes open in shock, but she makes no sound. 

Suddenly she moves, finds herself rushing down the steps to crouch by Remus’ form. Kingsley has seen her and is shouting and gesticulating at her, but Tonks ignores him. She runs her hands slowly along her husband’s head, the hair strands parting beneath her fingers. He is still warm, but unmoving. His limbs are not in a disordered slump but rather neatly arranged beneath him – he might almost be sleeping. 

She doesn’t look at his face, she couldn’t bear to look at it. She would falter and she can’t afford to do that. She needs to get him to safety.

As she levitates him off the ground a familiar face looms up towards her, rising out of the darkness and confusion of the battle. Tonks has imagined her face so often these last few years, it’s almost like she’s been expecting her. 

A shriek of laughter. “How is your ickle-wickle pet wolf? Is he dead?” 

Tonks stands slowly, her fingers tight around her wand. Remus is hovering behind her. Neville appears again in the corner of her eye.

“Take him!” She shouts. He nods. Remus’ body begins to bob away, towards the castle.

Her aunt pouts. “But I wanted to keep him. He’d make a wonderful rug, don’t you think?”

Tonks raises her arm slowly. She feels oddly at peace. She had always known it would come to this. Better to meet her fate head on, than to skulk around, hiding at home. That had never been her way.

If this is the way she and Remus were destined to die, then so be it. But she won’t go down without a fight.


	3. Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy lockdown everyone! Stay safe out there kids.

When he comes to, there is silence.

The last thing he remembers is smoke, curses flashing past him, the stomach-churning sound of battle being waged all around him.

Here there is only stillness.

Not stillness, no – in the distance there is movement. Remus rubs at his eyes, wondering why they’re not working properly. He needs his vision. How can he fight without it?

Odd, to have been so panicked before and now feel so calm. He must have passed out – injured, perhaps. 

The quiet around him is slowly crystallising. He tries to move, and finds that he is perfectly n control of all his limbs. He realises he is still standing upright, which is odd – how does one pass out standing up?

The world around him condenses into a thick wood, the mossy floor liberally scattered with leaves and twigs. He knows this place, but for a few long moments he cannot place it, though it is intimately familiar.

_The Forbidden Forest. I’m in the Forbidden Forest._

Weird. He distinctly remembers being just outside the castle doors when he fell. 

_Yes. That’s right. I fell._

A twinge of unease. How did he get it here? Has he been imprisoned, captured? And if so, to what purpose?

_They would never take me alive. They would never take any of us alive._

These thoughts do nothing to ease his worry, which only intensified as he spies the movement up ahead getting closer.

He crouches behind a shrub, wand in hand. At least they will not catch him unawares.

Three figures move into the clearing. Two men and a woman, by the looks of it. Remus does not recognise any of the more known death eaters, but their ranks are swelled with new recruits all the time.

_If they’re new, I should be able to take them. As long as I’m careful._

Careful. Yes, he must be careful. He’d promised Dora, and Teddy, that he would be careful, and make his way back home to them. 

The three figures are huddled, speaking to each other in quiet voices. Occasionally they look in the distance. Clearly waiting to be joined by a fourth.

Remus steals closer whilst their heads are turned. Perhaps it would be better to leave this group of strangers whilst they are otherwise occupied, and get back to the castle. The others will be wondering where he’s got to. They will be needing his help.

He’s about to move away when the moon comes out from behind a cloud and lights up the clearing, almost as bright as day. The three figures suddenly solidify.

Remus lets out a gasp, and they turn towards him.

He rises to his feet, wand still pointed at them.

“Moony!” 

It’s James. Well, obviously it’s not James, because James has been dead for almost twenty years, but this man is certainly his doppelganger. Gives Harry a run for his money.

_Harry. I’ve got to get back to the castle._

“Get out of my way.”

The three of them are still staring at him, but they’re not carrying wands. Perhaps it’s the fact that they look so like his three dead friends, but Remus feels that they won’t harm him. He keeps his wand aimed at them, though, because he promised Dora he’d be careful. 

“Remus…” the Lily-impersonator says, her hand held out towards him. Her face is a study in sorrow.

“Moony…It’s us, mate.” says the one who looks like Sirius. He’s tall, and broad-shouldered, and as handsome as he’d been before Azkaban bought a darkness to him that nothing had seemed to shift.

“Please.” He lowers his wand arm slowly. “Please. I need to get back.” He doesn’t know whether he means to the castle, to the battle, to Harry. Or maybe just home. Right now, more than anything, he’d like to go home. 

“We can’t go back. Not anymore…none of us can.” James says, his arm around Lily.

She steps forward, her hand still reaching out for him. “I’m so sorry, Remus.”

The penny finally drops. 

Remus feels as if a dead weight has dropped on his chest. He cannot breathe. So he just stares, dumbly, as Lily approaches him and takes his hand in hers. 

“But Dora.” This is the only thing he can think to say. “Dora. I promised her I wouldn’t leave again.”

James and Sirius have approached too, and the three of them surround him. They even smell familiar. 

Remus feels Sirius’ hand clasping his shoulder as Lily reaches up to touch his face.

Wet. His face is wet with tears. 

James is crushing him into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Remus.”

Remus finds himself gripping his friend’s frame desperately. He cannot bring himself to speak. It takes all his willpower to just stay standing. 

Sirius and Lily are looking away again, deeper in the forest.

“We’ve got to move. Harry is waiting.”


End file.
